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politkal writes with the lead from a CNN story: "A policeman in London appears to have accidentally revealed an arrest plan for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, in what UK media have branded an embarrassing slip-up by London's Metropolitan Police. Clearly legible in a zoomed-in view of the clipboard, on a sheet of paper headed 'Restricted,' are the words: 'EQ Embassy brief — Summary of current position re. Assange. Action required — Assange to be arrested under all circumstances.' It goes on to suggest possible ways in which he could exit the building, such as in a diplomatic bag or vehicle."

"Rape"? The case involves him failing to use a condom. The ladies involved have recanted. The prosecutor tried to drop the charges.

This whole thing is so disgustingly shady that anyone who spends more than 5 minutes looking at it realizes it's a set up to try and get him into a US or UK controlled area so he can be disposed of properly.

If he's so unimportant, why does the U.S. ambassador to Australia negotiate the terms of an extradition - just in case?If he's so unimportant, why insists Sweden on a witness statement given on swedish soil? (Yes, the extradition request is for a witness! It's not as if the state attorney already has filed charges.)If he's so unimportant, why does the UK government threats to storm the Ecuadorian embassy over him?

Somehow none of this sounds as if there is something completely unimportant happening. And somehow it doesn't sound as if Julian Assange is the one trying to inflate the importance.

No. The Sydney Morning Herald states that: 'American responses to the embassy's representations have been withheld from release on the grounds that disclosure could "cause damage to the international relations of the Commonwealth".' So we know mainly Australia's side of the conversation, but that doesn't mean that they consist purely of speculation. And why does Fred Burton of Stratfor then claims that the U.S. has a sealed indictment against Julian Assange?

In Sweden, it is about setting an example. Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism.

This is mainly calling people names.

Because it's Ecuador; who gives a shit? The UK has had this law for a while now, and all embassies in London should be quite aware of it. I sincerely doubt other nations will 'pull their business' if the UK storms the Ecuadorian embassy.

It's not about other nations pulling their business. It's about protecting UK embassies everywhere in the world. Who will for instance hinder the Russian police in the next Litvinenko-like case to storm the UK embassy in Moscow, citing the London precedent? That's the main reason why the UK retracted so fast from their bold statements - it would endanger the UK more than anyone else.

I could also ask you a counter-question: Why is he not getting extradited from the UK? Sweden - unlike the UK - has never been an ally of the USA. Not that they are enemies, but they are not active allies. Sweden is far too liberal to be thinking about extraditing Assange to the USA.

Assange has not committed access of espionage. He has not unlawfully approached secret information, instead, Bradley Manning went to him with the information, or rather Wikileaks. The way Wikileaks is set up means that Assange or Wikileaks in general, cannot know who leaked information to them. This ensures more safeguards for Wikileaks.

Manning's trial will start soon and I am sure he will be convincted. Assange on the other hand, have not committed any form of espionage in the USA. Furthermore, espionage count as military engagement, an area Sweden will not extradite under.

You're missing the point, which is to make him an example. After all if they merely wanted to off him they would be helping pack his bags to Ecuador and have a sniper waiting on him there, no muss and no fuss.

Nope the entire point is someone high up in the chain of command wants to make sure like Manning his ass suffers VERY publically, so that the next Manning to come along won't have anyone to accept the dirty laundry they have for fear of being "Another Assange".

Its called the chilling effect [wikipedia.org] and works quite well and I'm sure will work in this case. After all what person is gonna be willing to say or print shit in any high profile capacity against the USA if they see Assange dragged before a kangaroo court before being dropped in a deep dark hole somewhere?

Its called the chilling effect [wikipedia.org] and works quite well and I'm sure will work in this case. After all what person is gonna be willing to say or print shit in any high profile capacity against the USA if they see Assange dragged before a kangaroo court before being dropped in a deep dark hole somewhere?

Oooohhh Ooooooh! *raises hands*

Right here. If I was in the position to do so, I would not hesitate for a second to air the dirty laundry of the government. In fact, it is my duty to do so as a patriotic American . I could never live with myself allowing the government to continue to do something contrary to the ideals that we cherish. They failed us with their behavior and shamed all of America with their previously hidden actions.

My family history has members in WWII, WWI, and the Civil War. They bled for my freedom, as well as yours. They did not run away scared, or react to some chilling effect.

I would be proud to be dropped in a dark hole somewhere if I knew that I was exposing corruption in the country, that although I am currently deeply ashamed and disappointed in, I love for its ideals.

As much as you're maybe being a little overdramatic, what you say is very true. I say this as an Englishman about both our countries, people over here would rather allow themselves to be distracted by the Olympics for a few weeks.

I refuse to live the life of a coward. If government is a willing to abuse us and repress us, and with our cowardice we continue to enable them to do so, then we deserve that government.

I'm willing to die to make sure my country remains free. Granted, it is in a world of shit right now, but I don't back down just because the authority threatens me with further loss of freedom, or my life.

If and when the time comes to prove it, I believe in my heart, that I have the courage to make such a sacrifice and would be proud to do so.

I like how you put "Patriotic American" in bold and italics. Like it means something. Patriotism is just another system of control used by people in power to get the masses to do things they wouldn't normally do. You and your family wasted your lives obeying a system of control that gives freedom to the wealth at the expense of the poor. The only freedom you see is a prison of lies and deceit that try to turn you in to a model citizen to serve the corporate rulers of this country. Im sorry its really time you need to wake up to the fact that freedom in America is a bold faced lie. It only exists in your mind. Try to do something that really sets people free and you will surely lose any freedom you think you have real quick.

I have grandparents who were in camps in Poland during WWII, a great-uncle priest who was "disappeared" in soviet Russia, a flatmate whos grandparents survived fascist Italy. Naomi Wolf [youtube.com] is a reporter who in this 2007 talk gives a chilling argument on how she thinks the fascist playbook is being replayed in America. It's a list of steps that's predictive, and she says she'll start self-censoring when another reporter is declared an enemy combatant. She HAS spoken very recently on Assange. Lets hope he doesn't get imprisoned - the integrity of the media will start self-censoring otherwise (or at least the few corners still up and batting on this stuff).

China is hurting for oil. Ecuador has a shit load of oil. China has loaned a lot of money to Ecuador in exchange for a secured oil supply. Meanwhile America has offshored its economy to China. You do the math.

Do you have any links to back this up? It's obvious that Equador is independent of the US's control, but this is the first time I've heard of long term exclusivity contracts on Equador's oil contracts.

Not familiar with Swedish definitions of rape or whether the case would be prosecuted if it were so politicized, but in point of fact, neither of the girls have recanted. One of them says she's against the charges as being filed, but hasn't changed her testimony or disputed her given account of what he did.

If the case is really so strong, why are you making things up about it?

"Rape"? The case involves him failing to use a condom. The ladies involved have recanted. The prosecutor tried to drop the charges.

The allegations against him include rape a molestation. The women didn't consent to have sex with him at that time, in that way. That is sexual assault.The women appealed to have the charges reinstated.One prosecutor did drop the investigation, and another reinstated it shortly afterwards.

How do you not know this?

This whole thing is so disgustingly shady that anyone who spends more than 5 minutes looking at it realizes it's a set up to try and get him into a US or UK controlled area so he can be disposed of properly.

Assange was in UK controlled territory for well over a year. If they wanted to dispose of him they could have done so at any time. The fact of the matter is that they were holding him to extradite him to Sweden to face the justice system.

What is shady is the way people keep repeating things that aren't true about this case. Have you spent at least five minutes looking into things? If you have you must have looked in the wrong place as you're spreading disinformation.

A Swedish duty prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for Assange on August 20th over rape allegations. But chief prosecutor Eva Finne abruptly withdrew it the next day, saying new information had come to light.

Then last week Finne said there was no reason to believe a crime had been committed, adding however that she had enough evidence to keep looking into a molestation allegation from another woman against Assange.

The lawyer for Assange's alleged victims, Claes Borgstroem, lodged an appeal against Finne's decision to a special department in the public prosecutions office.

Assange, 39, has said the allegations against him are part of a "smear campaign" aimed at discrediting his whistleblowing website, which is locked in a row with the Pentagon over the release of secret US documents about the war in Afghanistan.

Ny, head of the department that oversees prosecution of sex crimes in particular, overturned Finne's decision on the rape claim, and also said the investigation into the molestation claim would be extended.

Rather than the prosecution of Assange being political, it looks to me more like dropping the changes and the many defenses of Assange using false information are political.

The women didn't appeal to have the charges reinstated, a lawyer did so without the knowledge of the women. They came out and said it straight out in Swedish media right after the trial, and strangely we have heard absolutely nothing from either of the women and when they addressed the media that one time, at least one of the women wanted to have it all over with as she felt she was being used as an excuse for a witch hunt. All reference to these things have largely vanished from the internet and if you actually try to search for any of them approximately 16 of the top 20 search results now consist of web sites that appear to be in support of assange but now "have doubts" and if you read a few lines down they start spouting that he's guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt and needs to be brought to justice for these poor women.

In fact as of right now they can't get the women to testify, and the women cannot redact their previous testimony as it has already been entered into the public record.

The guy is not a saint, and he is a bit of an ass, but without paper guarantee that he will NOT be extradited out of sweden at any time in the future and will be allowed to leave sweden by whatever means and in whatever direction he chooses once he has faced his charges in swedish court and served any jail time or done whatever service is due because of his crime. Without that he is perfectly legitimate in being fucking terrified of going back there.

I should also note that the story you post can't even remotely be correct. Assange remained IN SWEDEN for almost 3 full weeks after the charges were dropped. If what the story said is even remotely true he wouldn't have been allowed to leave the country, instead he actually got express consent to leave the country FROM THE PROSECUTORS OFFICE.

So the fact that there's not a shred of evidence to support any the stuff you're saying proves that there is a huge conspiracy. Because otherwise, there's no way to explain why there isn't anything on the internet to back up what you're saying.

Okay, let's consider what we do know then. The Swedish authorities have have multiple opportunities to interview Assange and the invitation is still open to them, but they don't. They want him to go to Gothenburg rather than Stockholm, which coincidentally is where they run extraordinary rendition flights from. The UK does not allow such flights and it is unlikely we would extradite him if the US formally asked, considering how much of a fight there has been over people being extradited for things that won't result in their torture or execution.

Sweden needs to explain why they won't resolve the situation. They could come to the UK, do the interview and if they decide not to proceed that would be the end of it. Even if they did want to charge him then at least things would move forwards. They don't seem interested in actual justice though, just getting him to Sweden.

As it is the situation is costing the UK Â£50,000 per day to police. We look like chumps and Assange looks like a martyr, a cause that people can rally around.

The second girl even had a fingering session in the back of the cinema before the actual sex. The other said "may as well" on her account. You do not need a contract to have sex in Sweden, consent to sex is not required to be in the form of a verbal or written contract.

"The women appealed to have the charges reinstated."After the second prosecutor convinced them to.

The extra evidence that came to light was the blog entry where girl 1 said she could use this law to get revenge on a cheating boyfriend. The second piece of evidence that came to light was the foreplay, and the third piece, the fact the girls had tried to sell their story to the papers before making a claim to police.

He did not 'flee' either, he asked if he was needed as he wanted to go to the UK and was told not, so he left. Only then did she issue an international arrest warrant citing his 'fleeing' as cause. This is a demonizing move, the 'fleeing' is to pretend he had something to hide. He was a man facing a nothing charge from tainted witnesses that in any other circumstances would face investigation themselves (for making false claims in order to profit from a news paper story).Instead he became an criminal under the serious crimes, expedited extradition treaty that is only supposed to be used for major crimes like terrorism.

To be fair it did look strange that immediately after the release of the documents he was accused of rape. I don't know what he did or didn't do but my credibility alarmed pinged.

Not really surprising, no. He was full of himself at that moment. High on media. I don't find it particularly surprising that he would think more of himself and less of others at that time.

The whole thing reminds me of Beria after Stalin. Before Stalin died, Beria was head of the NKVD, the precursor of the KGusetaBe. He was the front runner to take over. Then he got hit with over 150 allegations of rape, molestation, child molestation, the at the time version of sexual harrassment, and mopery and dopery. Beria died in prison 'attempting to escape', the date unknown.

Point is, nail somebody with a sex crime charge, nobody listens to him anymore. True or not, Assauge's credibilty went down the shitter when the charges were announced. He'll never get past them.

And that the women had lunch with him the next day and didn't press charges until the two of them met, and apparently decided after swapping stories that what had actually happened was rape.

Actually... not immediately complaining is fairly common in rape cases. Myth 10 [cps.gov.uk] in the CPS's list of rape myths might be worth a mention here, and some of the others are worth reading.

From their testimony, it seems that one of them wanted to complain but wasn't sure how to, and trying to find out, managed to get in touch with the other, who accompanied her to the police station. I doubt whether either of them thought it was rape, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is what he is accused of, and whether that amounts to rape.

You know Karl Rove, right? The guy that resigned from the Bush administration under a cloud after being accused of trying to corrupt the Department of Justice ie. sacking US prosecutors for not persuing cases in a 'party political' manner? Guess who he's working for these days - the Prime Minister of Sweden [huffingtonpost.com].

"Rape"? The case involves him failing to use a condom. The ladies involved have recanted. The prosecutor tried to drop the charges.

This again? Yes, it "involves" him failing to use a condom. But, with respect to one of the counts, it's a lot more than that: the allegation is that he had sex with a woman who was asleep, thus unable to consent. This lack of consent was aggravated by his knowledge that she didn't want to have sex without a condom. The other conduct described might be considered trivial by some, but this act qualifies as rape in most civilized countries.

Bull. Everything is a state secret these days... what he has done is uncover the CRIMINAL ACTIVITY that the U.S. and its tight allies have been undertaking in other countries. 5% of the world does not control the other 95% - it likes to pretend, however.

Don't forget that it is also probably because they anticipated the "rape" case that US did several "firsts in history" to his organization :
- removed from Amazon with no notice
- VISA accounts seized
- Matercard accounts seized
- Paypal account revoked
- DNS registers erased (threatening the credibility of ICANN as a political neutral entity, which is kind of a big deal)

These things have been done outside any legal process. In fact, wikileaks is apparently currently winning the trial to recover their funds.

When you are the head of an organization that has been the target of such an aggressive campaign, outside the rules, by the US government, I think that you won a strict application of presumption of innocence.

it would appear the OP is pointing out the unusual tenacity with which they're pursuing someone for a rape charge,

Perhaps you noticed that the "unusual tenacity" came to be when Assange became a fugitive from justice? Think about it.... What did Assange do? Broke his bond and fled the police.

No bond was broken, no fleeing occurred. Assange left Sweden weeks after the incident in question, with the express permission of the prosecutor's office. For that matter, he isn't even wanted on a rape charge, he's wanted for questioning in relation to a possible charge. He has offered numerous times to talk with the Swedish prosecutor or a representative while in the UK. None of this is terribly consistent with the actions of someone purportedly on the lam.

Worth noting, from a transcript [truth-out.org] of a Democracy Now discussion, emphasis mine:

"...Sweden and the United Kingdom both refused to provide assurances that once matters were dealt with in Sweden, that Julian would be permitted to leave the country and would not be extradited to the United States. They refused to provide those assurances."

This is probably the more salient point regarding Assange's reluctance to step again on Swedish soil.

Diplomats are not created by the guest country, but by the host country. The guest country says "We have this person here that we wish to represent us to you," the host country then says "We accept that person as your representative and confer upon them status as a diplomat." There are various level of official ceremony that go along with this, depending on the rank of the diplomat (for example in the US an ambassador meets with the president and presents formal credentials and so on, whereas a junior lackey gets little more than an ok from the State Department).

You don't just get to declare someone to be a diplomat at any time because you feel like it. Remember that the whole thing is a treaty between countries, not a unilateral deceleration enforced by some higher power. This is also why diplomats can be expelled by the host country. They say "This person is no longer welcome here." In the event said diplomat doesn't leave, they lose their diplomatic status and can be subject to arrest and so on.

So no, Ecuador can't just say "Oh ya, he's a diplomat," the UK would simply say "No, sorry, we haven't recognized him as such."

Also even if they could there'd be the problem of diplomatic fallout. Not only with the UK, but other countries as well. Many nations might decide they weren't interested in having an diplomats from a nation if that nation would decide to make criminals (Assanage is a criminal in Britain, he skipped his bail) diplomats when it suited them.

Nobody "accidentally" carries a restricted document outside on the front of a clipboard. Good for those coppers. They can't publically declare their support for Wikileaks and Assange's movement to Ecuador, but it's awesome of them to be helping out where they can.

Sure, if you just wanted to be rid of Assange, that would be easy. Snipers. Bombs. Even just a guy with a pistol.

Problem is, you have him killed in any way that looks deliberate, and he becomes a martyr. I would hope that anyone in power is smart enough to know that, but I've also learned that you can never underestimate just how stupid people can be.

Now, you could try other ways. If he was just in hiding, not causing an international incident in an embassy, you could stage a "mugging gone wrong" or even just a car accident. "Problem" eliminated, but it doesn't look like you did it. If you were really good, try to make it look like it *was* deliberate, but a plan by Ecuador from the beginning to kill him for... some reason. Has to be a good reason, obviously, but it's plausible.

But even then, he dies "fighting". It's obvious that they want to first assassinate his *character*, not the person himself. Assange the man is a nobody, a mildly egotistic anti-authoritarian who started a website almost anyone could make. The problem is Assange the concept, Assange the idea. The lone rebel trying to show the evil empires for what they really are.

That's who they need to eliminate. They started with the rape allegations. Perhaps they simply embellished what actually happened. Perhaps they twisted what was said, what was done. Perhaps they made the whole thing up. They've blurred the charges so much that I can't even tell what he's actually charged with anymore. But they did a good job of it - Assange the Idea, at least to some, is gone, replaced with Assange the Man, a man who (at worst) is a hypocritical rapist scumbag, or (at best) a regular guy who made a few mistakes on par with public intoxication.

Their next step, obviously, is to milk the "common criminal" idea for all it's worth. I don't think they'll even extradite him to the US to face some vague treason charge - that brings back discussion of the leaks, the rebel and the big bad empire. No, they'll try to avoid even mentioning that. They'll hit him with rape charges to make him scum (rape is often considered the worst crime, worse even than murder). They'll probably bring in charges like shoplifting to make him seem petty, small. Then when they've finished their show trial, they'll lock him away and try to shut him up. Only once he's in prison will they think of trying to kill him, again while avoiding martyrizing him (if it were an American prison, just staging a prison fight and shanking would be enough).

It's obvious that they want to first assassinate his *character*, not the person himself. Assange the man is a nobody, a mildly egotistic anti-authoritarian who started a website almost anyone could make. The problem is Assange the concept, Assange the idea.

So, what you're saying is Assange is the hero the world deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So they'll hunt him. Because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian of truth, a watchful whistle blower.

I wonder how long the people of London would stand for it if 50 small trucks a day started pulling into the embassy garage, then pulling out again and heading for Europe. What kind of police presence would it take to search every one of them on a daily basis?

Maybe once in a while, just for a laugh, have somebody approximating Assange's physical appearance hop in for a ride around the city.

I wonder how long the people of London would stand for it if 50 small trucks a day started pulling into the embassy garage, then pulling out again and heading for Europe. What kind of police presence would it take to search every one of them on a daily basis?

Maybe once in a while, just for a laugh, have somebody approximating Assange's physical appearance hop in for a ride around the city.

Why isn't anyone asking the question: Why is the British authorities so fixated on extraditing Assange to Sweden when he's only wanted in connection with an accusation concerning two counts of the mildest form of rape (consensual sex under false pretenses - without condom) ? - If convicted he can't even get jail time for a first time offense!

Hmm, maybe you're from the past. Hello, time traveller! On today's internet, that level of stupid simply places him in the 80th percentile. I hope you enjoy 2012, but you'll probably want to pick a different decade for your final journey.

What's really sad is that this isn't some random general-population site on the internet, this is supposed to be the home of geeks and nerds, people who are supposedly smarter than the average. Even so, your words are true; this level of stupidity is normal here in 2012. The intelligence level here on Slashdot, like everywhere else in American society, has fallen greatly in the last 10 years or so.

Maybe Wikileaks could send some of their money towards the people on the front lines.

You think Wikileaks is a big money-making venture?

It's funny how people believe anyone whose name is in the news must be rich. "Hey, did you see that guy who got a million hits on his YouTube video of his dog who skateboards? That guy must be like a millionaire or something!"

"Hell, man, Wikileaks must be rolling in it if Assange is in the news for trying to avoid arrest! Maybe they should spread some of that wealth around, you know? Oh, and Go Romney!"

The sad thing is most Americans wouldn't vote for anybody even if you put a gun to their heads. Until you all get off your arses and vote you'll just get the people that help out their donors instead of people that are worth voting for. I know it's stupidly on a Tuesday and their are hoops to go through instead of easily registering as a voter at 18, but in most other democratic countries and the early USA it was seen as a duty of a citizen to vote. If hardly any of you can be bothered you'll get one extreme or another nearly every time.

Getting out and voting doesn't make a difference here. In case you haven't been following things, the elections are highly controlled so that you end up with two really shitty choices for President (and the other elections aren't any better), thanks to our first-past-the-post voting system that hasn't changed since the 1700s, rather than the proportional election systems you Europeans use. There are some exceptions at the local level, where there's proportional systems, runoff systems, etc. used, and those are indeed better, but the chances of any of those ever being used in national elections is nil.

I suspect with something like the 80+% turnout the USA had in the 1830s you would have a very different political landscape and the actual mechanism of collecting and tallying votes would be improved and run professionally on a state or federal level out of necessity.Delivering poorly designed machines to untrained volunteers on the day (and the million other utterly stupid stuffups) is not acceptable - something that important should be planned properly so that the volunteers know how to run the polling station before the day. Having a wide variety of voting methods within even the same state for no actual practical reason (Florida 2000 was a joke) is a barrier to getting a clear result and bit of an insult to the voting public that have to wait insane amounts of time in some cases. If there was some sort of independent national body that ran elections then they would go as smoothly as those that US experts run on behalf of the UN in some countries. You already have the people that could do the job, but I suspect there's too much pork, and possibly outright corruption, bound up in all that money that goes into local voting systems, to do it without a lot of resistance even if it was done at a state instead of federal level.

Your system of broken beyond voting machine snafu's and other voting mechanisms.

You have an electoral system. You don't decide who gets to be president, you get to decide who your State thinks should be president. And that State gets a vote that is dependant on how many people there are (ideally). If 49% of people pick Republican, and 51% pick Democrat, then 100% of the electoral votes of the State go towards the Democrat. And because of this, other parties can't get a word in edgewise.

There have been states that have gone to vote for third parties (or independents), but these were barely even a blip because mainly it's Republican or Democrat.

Let's face it, the concept of United States is dead anyway; the federal government has seized so much centralized power since the Civil War, it's no longer a collection of states with a small central government. So either fix that, or don't pretend any more and go the full monty. National elections, where every vote is a vote.

I'm from the UK and we've tried with a couple of pretty successful petitions to have 'none of the above' put on the list of choices. Trouble is, they're scared to death of it because it would win nearly every time. Then we could spend a pleasant five years, moron-free, building small alternative structures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-voting [wikipedia.org]

I read an interview with Adrian Lamo once where he said that when he turned in Manning, he didn't think Assange would actually go through and release the State Department cables. He thought Assage would put Manning's safety above releasing the cables.

Did I just read that right? The man who betrayed Manning blames the man whom he claims respected his wishes?

Treason? The only treason I see having been committed was by the officials who did anything so embarrassing that it needed to be leaked. Maybe if politicians and bureaucrats weren't such unethical, scheming, corrupt slimebags there'd be no reason for people like Assange and Manning to do what they're doing.

Well, I, as a part of the the rest of the word, have a problem with your "rules of engagement" which leads to deaths of innocent people and children. Don't try to weasel out of it.

We are decent people and when we see a people in pain, in injury or distress, we stop and help them out. The last thing we want is some murderous pilot and his handlers deciding on killing us on a whim. The release of the "Collateral Murder" video was the right thing to do and shows to the rest of the world what a crooked military system America has. Bush even signed a law which would lead to the invasion of a friendly country (Holland) in case an American soldier was arrested and charged for war crimes. Go and google The Hague Invasion Act.

Not to mention, if you want to see real treason, you need look no further than the Obama administration, which leaked information about the Osama bin Laden raid to try and shore up support for his reelection.

Leaks which, unlike Wikileaks, DID get people killed. Leaks which compromised those who provided the intelligence that led to Bin Laden, getting them caught by foreign forces.

But do you think anyone is going to get in trouble for those leaks? Of course not, it allowed Obama to announce that he had killed Bin Laden!

Legally, it is. But if those documents were classified to hide how badly the war was going, it may be morally right to break the law.

The war is paid for by the public, and the public can only make an informed decision on whether to support the war if they have access to relevant information. If the government is hiding information just to avoid embarrassing themselves, it's a betrayal against the public.

people were put in danger and some actually died due to Manning's treason

And we're just supposed to take your word for that, right? Or if not yours, someone else's?

If they don't execute him then they should never execute anyone.

That's probably a good place to start reforming the "justice" system.

The man violated the trust placed in him.

. ..in order to shed light on government abuses of power, secrets which he probably didn't know he'd be required to keep when he was making his oath. So whose trust was really violated here? And do you honestly think violating trust is the worst offense a man can commit? If that's the standard we should all be executed.

The collateral murder video shows unarmed civilians (including a reporter) being killed by US helicopters. The incident was later covered up by the US military. It was not, by and stretch of the imagination, a friendly fire incident. The criminal act exposed was the coverup.

Morgan Tsvangirai is doing very well, thank you very much. He was never in any danger, and is not in any danger today. Any fallout from the article published was political only. And do you believe that Zimbabweans don't deserve to know that their prime minister was was secretly urging the US to continue sanctions while publicly he asked them to discontinue them? I think it's wrong to say one thing and do another, but maybe that's just me. It's not like the people of Zimbabwe are going to say "in light of that, maybe Mugabe isn't such a bad guy." Most of the people I talked to when I was over there hated they guy and couldn't wait to be rid of him.

"Say what you want but a lot of people were put in danger and some actually died due to Manning's treason"

Maybe you could comment on how many of Valerie Plame's contacts were put in danger by Cheney's deliberate treason in identifying her as a CIA agent handler. Actually, Cheney placed any foreign citizen who had ever shaken hands with her in extreme danger.

The Bush administration set the standard and since none of the people who were involved were ever charged with anything, the same standard should be applied to Manning. And by the way, none of the criminals like the helicopter gunmen who blew away the Reuters reporters were ever charged with anything.

America was founded on many acts of treason. If the men and women committing these acts of treason, against the king, were caught, they'd have been put to death. Since the rebels won, we Americans consider these treasonous rebels brave heroes and patriots. The Tories - not so much.

First off, the founders of the USA made an open statement of their problems with King George, having worked to resolve them.

Second, instead of publishing who King George had agreements with, or who his spies in France are, or some other embarassing detail, they simply started their own country and said: if you don't like it, this is who we are; come get some.

Third, they took up arms and resisted the people the King sent after them, when he did indeed come

I have bad news for you, if you think that soldiers regularly fight battles without trying to dehumanize them. If they had been correct in their identification, their actions would probably have not been noteworthy at all; the issue is that they misidentified the targets.

I've never heard of it being OK to shoot wounded soldiers or people who are trying to take them away to get medical attention, and certainly not when there's children in their car (since they don't have the resources for proper ambulances and such).

It's really pretty sick just how evil Americans are now, and what kinds of crimes they will defend. Americans make Nazis look not-so-bad.

Actually the fact he is stuck in the Embassy and in the UK right now and not some place that is much more friendly to him, like say Iceland, pretty much shows how naive Assange has been about the entire thing.

He knew they wanted him but he assumed they would have to play fair, and by the rules to get him, which isn't the case as he is now learning. Especially since traditional media sources are fully prepared to ignore and or tar n feather Assange

Let's be honest, the only reason he's in that embassy and not buried in an unmarked grave in outer Elbonia is because the parties have been playing fair and by the rules. The US has not asked for him, at all. The Swedes have issued a warrant on a serious crime. England held a hearing, let Assange defend himself but still decided he needed to go face those criminal charges. And he ran to the Embassy.

For all the great evils the CIA, Mossad and MI6 supposedly do on a daily basis, what is he doing still breathing? Oh that's right, the Nations in question are playing fair and they following the rules. Which historically is pretty unusual for a non-state actor who has so much highly sensitive data pass through his hands.

Dear AC,
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Sincerely,
Trying

Any sources for that claim? That would be worse than storming an embassy. Diplomatic bags often contain very sensitive communication. One time pads, encryption devices are all send using diplomatic bags. It would be unimaginable to claim that the host nation can violate diplomatic bags (unless they are certain that the bag violates the conventions governing diplomatic bags, and by opening it they can prove it).

And the higher ranks of law enforcement can play politics as well as a Vogon. They are amply aware of the unique circumstances surrounding this case, and can recognize this case as a political land-mine. It's the real life equivalent of "Officer Bob, why don't you take three of your men down to the old mill where people have been disappearing, and uh, do it without any of your weapons. Just walk around for a bit, make a little noise. That's a good chap." The fallout, in any case, may be on par with that of